Point-to-point protocol (PPP) can be used for dial-up Internet access and is used by some internet service providers (ISPs) for a digital subscriber line (DSL) and cable modem authentication, in the form of point-to-point protocol (PPP) over Ethernet. PPP has evolved beyond its original use as a dial-up access method and includes an authentication mechanism. For example, for dial-up Internet access, a user name and password are used for authentication and PPP authentication is utilized to identify the user at the other end of the PPP line before granting the user access. In order to provide additional security, an additional authentication protocol known as Extensible Authentication protocol (EAP) can be included within the PPP protocol. EAP provides a generalized framework for several different authentication methods and enables everything from passwords to challenge-response tokens and public-key infrastructure certificates to all work smoothly.